Learning The Ropes

Amanda said it would be difficult. She was wrong. The modern world isn't like the one she was born into in 1740. In the 21st century the people living next door usually can't describe their neighbours, let alone tell you their names.

No. I wasn't rich. Not in the beginning, but that wasn't a problem. Amanda took care of our sleeping arrangements and she was rich. Incalculably rich.

She owns a twin-jet Gulfstream GV, a Hummer, and a Bugatti Centenaire Villa d'Este Limited Edition in black and silver...and a castle. You can read about it on the internet. She had it built around the Frankenstein Tower, located in Hills and Dales Park on Patterson Road in Dayton, Ohio. She has people that still give tours of the tower for twenty bucks a pop.

The rest of the castle is off limits and she has the guards to enforce the rules, though she has standing orders that college kids breaking into the tower are to be left alone.

Well, okay. At first it was hard.

The guy she brought me for my first meal was a rapist. He had three coeds under his belt, so to speak when she caught him. I could feel the blood pulsing through his body even before she marched him into my cell.

Yes. New vampires have to be restrained or they, well...I tore his throat out with my new hollow canines, wasting all that precious blood.

"A neonate must replace all of the blood they have lost to death," she explained as I sucked ravenously at his ruined throat. He wasn't a large man, maybe a hundred and seventy pounds, but he was in good shape - a weekend warrior. It didn't matter. He was enthralled when I jumped him and bleeding out before he knew what hit him.

"You must learn to use your fangs properly," Amanda instructed as I sucked at his torn throat, "and take care not to take the blood after the heart stops. It goes bad so quickly."

"Your fangs are hollow, my lovely," she continued. "When you can control yourself, you will be able to feel the blood through them. You must learn to pierce the artery without pushing through to the meat on the other side. It requires a degree of delicacy that most neonates are incapable of exercising, but never fear. All it takes is practice."

She was right.

After I'd replaced the blood I'd lost to death, which took seven full adults since I couldn't use the blood after the heart stopped pumping, I was able to restrain my blood thirst.

Ye gods, in the beginning I was ravenous! I hadn't felt that way since...I would say before I could remember, but with my new status as one of the living dead came a near perfect memory. Amanda called it eidetic memory. A layman like myself would call it a photographic memory, though Amanda was more correct. I could remember everything. Every sight, sound, touch, smell and taste from every moment of my life as if it happened only a moment ago.

Better yet, all of my senses were preternaturally sharp too. I could smell fear and terror and desire. I could read a newspaper by touch. I could taste everything my victims had for dinner up to three days before. I could hear conversations across a crowded club while counting the pores on my victim's face.

The second was a marathon runner who finished third in the last 200k 'Running to Infinity' held in Columbus. He was even smaller, barely a hundred and fifty pounds, but with the constitution of a horse.

The third was a woman. She was a little thing with the reflexes of a cat. She worked as a magician for hire when she wasn't breaking into high end mansions in Oakwood.

She was the first one I was able to restrain myself with...that is, to enjoy the pulse of her heart in my mouth.

As I fed Amanda explained that rape isn't so much about sex as it is about power and control. She explained that in the beginning I would gain the traits of my victims, so she was choosing them for me oh so carefully. Endurance, she said is the primary characteristic of a hero.

Intelligence was not an issue, since I now process information faster than a computer, but the ability to keep on keeping on would allow me to stay ahead of the mundane world with their pitchforks and torches.

The girl would help me with my dexterity issues. Apparently preternatural speed (movement) does not come with preternatural agility. Even as a neonate I could do a hundred meter sprint in seven and a half seconds, but stopping and, worse, turning was still governed by my mortal reaction time. So Amanda arranged for me to borrow the young cat burglar's reflexes.

With number four she taught me to capture the soul, as she called it, using my first victim's need for control. As preternatural creatures, we can access a mortal's subconscious directly through the windows of their soul, the eyes. In theory we shouldn't be able to make them do anything they wouldn't do during normal waking consciousness, but in practice you can talk the subconscious into just about anything.

Telepathy helps with that too.

Amanda says that we can only read into the upper layers of the subconscious, but let's face it...how deep is the average human mind? All the animal instincts and desires are there, floating just below the surface. Dying may have temporarily turned me into an animal, but it really doesn't take such drastic measures to strip away the veneer of civilization from a mortal. A little push is all it takes. Flight and fight are waiting patiently just beneath the surface. A sudden noise or a bright flash and the combat reactions surface with all the subtlety of a breeching whale.

Fortunately sex runs a close third behind fight or flight, depending upon the nature of the victim. An Alpha's fight response can be turned to desire. A Beta's flight response can be turned to willing submission.

Sunlight isn't the problem the legends make it out to be either. We just decay faster in direct sunlight. Feeding regularly and fully can mitigate those effects almost completely. Amanda is more than 200 years old and she can pass for human without makeup or glamor.

Neither Amanda nor I have experienced any problems with holy items or priests. Churches make me mad, not nervous. Eternal life through the blood of the lamb...who knew that humans were the sheep?

Oh, they know about us, these shepherds. They know and they fear us, because they have nothing that can stand against us. Not god. Not faith. Nothing. No thing.

The shepherds lie.

But that was last year. I'm over it now. I mean, how long can you stay mad at someone for being an idiot...or a coward?

Now comes the hard part.

According to tradition, after a year and a day a sire is required to kick her fledgling out of the nest and allow him to make his way on his own.

Naked.

I was well trained by then and had my household already set up. It was an apartment complex in Kettering, complete with hot and cold running children.

Tasty children.

My servant ran the day-care centre. Children are great because their minds are so malleable and their regenerative powers will never be stronger. The little help those regenerative powers receive from our saliva, which can heal a feeding mark on an adult, but still leave a nasty bruise (at my age), will completely heal a canine puncture mark on four year old's thigh. Sure, it takes four children to make a meal without killing them, but that just means you have to rotate through them.

Jeana's Rainbow Center for children housed every kid in the complex. All thirty-five of them, ages two to five. Using my mental powers I already had all the mothers in the complex wishing they had another child. You have to plan ahead when it comes to child treats, er, care.

It is amazing just how much government support, assistance and grant money is available to child care institutions and small businesses.

Jeana was my servant and the owner of record for the day-care centre. She didn't know it yet, but she would come around. It was just a matter of time. I went over my plan with Amanda and she approved. Apparently Machiavelli was popular even in her day and fear mixed with love has always been a potent protective cocktail.

Jeana was a cute little thing.

Smart, but with little ambition. She started out watching her neighbours' kids for five bucks and hour. If you figure four kids time eight hours a day, five days a week the math is simple. She was pulling in eight hundred dollars a week, tax free. It wasn't a great living, but it kept her in shoes.

I made a suggestion to the apartment complex owner that they should subsidize Jeana's day-care centre. The two women that owned the apartments knocked out the wall between Jeana's place and the apartment next door and wa la! The Rainbow Care Centre was created.

And guess what! The government pays better than five bucks an hour.

Not a lot more, but with thirty-five kids Jeana was able to hire six coed assistants at ten bucks an hour and increase her own income by an order of magnitude. She even had her own private investigator to do background checks on the employees.

Jeana thought I worked for one of the government alphabet soup agencies. One which was classified, of course, and very mysterious. Of course, she never remembered my visits during nap time.

By day Jeana worked.

By night we played.

She never remembered that we played until after it was over. That was part of the draw. Every night was a surprise.

Sometimes I would knock on her door pretending to be the complex manager. She would always open the door to check my I.D. This made forcing my way inside easy, for no normal human is a match for a preternatural one. I wasn't gentle with her, but she was usually too frightened to scream.

I could hear her screams though. The ones inside her head.

"Nooo!" she would cry silently, unable to catch her breath as I roughly crushed her against me, knocking the wind out of her. Then I would bruise her mouth with my kisses as she struggled against me, her tiny fists pounding my chest and sometimes my face.

Then I would release her and make her strip naked for my inspection. First the shoes. Then the stockings, followed quickly by the blouse. She always wore a skirt, thanks to my programming. Then went the panties. I made her turn and pose for me in her lacy Guia La Bruna thong and matching bra. She had two sets for every day of the week. One for work and one for me.

After forcing her to model her lingerie I would take possession of her body, touching her everywhere. Running my hands over her arms and legs and flat little tummy, but not touching anything erogenous.

Jeana was such a slut.

Even without my gaze she was always dripping by the time I made her remove her thong. I loved making Jeana watch her own arousal run in rivulets down her thighs. Jeana's breasts were a problem for her, because they were small. Her 34B cup size was barely a mouthful and she hated having to bare them to a stranger.

After I had her stripped down to just her bra, I made her take it off one strap at a time. Then unclip the fastener in the front and drop one cup at a time until both hung free from her elbows. Then I tied her wrists with the bra and had her raise her hands up over her head so she was stretched before me.

Having her spread her legs was pure torture, for that is how an aroused woman relieves herself. There would be no comforting press of thigh against thigh or pouty engorged neither lips against engorged neither lips.

By now she is both terrified and aroused beyond all limits, so I make her touch herself. First down below, stroking herself long and slow...and deep. Then I force her to play with her nipples, teasing them to firm little buds with her wet fingers until she was ready to go just from the stimulation of her nipples. Nipples which, she has discovered, seem to have a direct connection to her moist, maddeningly sensitive, little love button.

I have a theory about small breasted women. I figure they have the same amount of nerve endings as large breasted women, but with a smaller surface area i.e. more sensitivity.

Jeana's body certainly bore this theory out.

I cannot resist the temptation and I step up behind her and raise her bound hands, pulling them back so they settle around my neck. As I nuzzle her delectable throat I can feel the blood surging inside of her. I taste her. Just a short little lick along the line of her jugular. I savour the pulse of her blood against my tongue.

I turn her to face me, draping her arms around my neck and shoulders. She shudders as she feels the press of my clothed body against her naked form. I bend my knees and lower my lips her to her nipples, sucking one into my mouth. I let her feel my teeth against her soft skin.

She groans into the sensation as the memories rise from the depths of her unconscious. Her body writhes against mine in anticipation of what she knows is to come.

Then, when she is teetering on the edge...just about to come, I show her my fangs and she knows all that went before was not about rape.

It was about seasoning the blood.

I pull her to me and put my mouth against her throat.

She moans.

I feel her pulse beating against my teeth as my fangs slip a little in anticipation. My left hand drops between her legs and rises into her, stroking her need.

She gasps and then collapses against me.

I release my control and my fangs punch into her neck, sinking into her artery as she cries out in pleasure and pain.

It is too much for Jeana and her body collapses limply against mine. I catch her in my arms, pulling her body tight against me as I feed on the desire and fear surging through her blood. Her blood in my mouth surges with the aftershocks of her desire long after her body stops shuddering against mine.

Then it is over.

The hormones fade. The blood calms. After several long moments I pull away, retracting my fangs before I drink the last of her life's essence.

Jeana is a good servant. Both profitable and tasty.

After a year, I am well practiced and, after all, this is just desert. A quick wet lick heals the damage done by my fangs. She won't even have a hickey on her neck to confirm this dream come tomorrow morning.

I tuck her into bed naked and pull the sheets over her small breasts. She moans in her sleep, her lips parting for one last kiss...one first kiss.

I turn without tasting those lips. Perhaps tomorrow I will taste her other lips when they are wet and juicy, like a succulent lamb.

Perhaps.

Perhaps not.